[taltamir]

while there are problem with the AI, none of the OPs arguments againt it are valid...

Generally speaking, the higher the level and HP of a unit, the less damage it does per leadership... so 3000 peasants do WAYYYY more damage then 4 dragons. But every hit by the enemy kills many. The enemy is playing to win, not to piss you off by killing unique units, you just happen to have a more powerful hero.

pigmy decreases damage and health of stack, by a percentage... as well as those other spells, they are all "scaling".. that is, their effectiveness depends on the amount of units and their power.

Depending on your build it can make chaos magic best, or worst. I find it really awesome with a chaos magic oriented mage. But when using large enough stacks a 2000 damage fireball (17 mana, level 3, well placed) becomes a drop in the ocean compared to, say, making all your units inflict max damage for 5 rounds. (bless, level 3, mass effect). Because it increases the total damage of your units by more then its own damage. A stack of 1000 units doing 2-4 damage each will do an average 3000 damage(2000-4000). Bless increases that to 4000, always. I found all the buffs to be useless compared to direct damage until I found out that SOME of them become mass (affect all units on the battlefield) at level 3. Not to mention that you save a lot of runes that would otherwise be wasted on certain skills, runes that can be used to increase your units power... like nighttime operation with its +2 defense +2 attack during night, or inside, or in caves... (where all the tough opponents are in other words)